


The Bird and the Bee

by Unicron



Series: The Bird and the Bee-Verse [1]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Culture Shock, Fantastic Racism, Hunting, M/M, Mentions of Rape, Safewords, Sexual Roleplay, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Tags to be added as needed, also yes I know minibots and minicons are different but for the sake of this fic I DON'T CARE, barbarian au, but no kidnapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-06-05 00:09:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 18,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15158183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unicron/pseuds/Unicron
Summary: Life in the minibot tribe could be boring, but thankfully for its leader, Bumblebee, adventure is about to fall into his lap. AKA my obligatory Barbarian AU featuring Starbee.





	1. Bumblebee

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StarlightCaptivator](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightCaptivator/gifts).



The minibot tribe wasn’t known for being a particularly exciting place. Most days on their stretch of plains blended into one another and without the changing harvests, gatherings, and hunts of the seasons one might assume their chronometers were lying about the passage of time. When the rustbugs came around it was spring and time to shift to their summer territory, when the Cybertronian butterflies returned from their migrations it was sign another year had passed, when titanium moosebots showed up it was the season for feasting. Regardless, when it came time to gather a harvest of jellied energon the mega-cycles might as well be one and the same until the harvest was finished and it was time to refine the bounty.

That was normally the case anyways. When excitement hit the minibot tribe it hit hard, and on this particular day it hitting hard was anything but metaphorical. One moment the tribe’s leader had been dealing with collecting the last few drops of jellied energon from a particularly stubborn comb and the next he was flat on his back with a massive mech on top of him. The minibot honked his horn frantically and after a klik or so several tribe members were by his side. “Get it off,” Bumblebee said breathlessly. A few deka-kliks passed and the mech realized that the group that had come to his rescue weren’t up for the task and he added, “Hey Tailgate, get Cliffjumper and your mate.”

At that the white mech ran off on his mission and Bumblebee did his best to settle into his current position. He rolled his wheels hesitantly and discovered the impact had bent his axel and while trying to wiggle himself out from under the other mech he found that he was trapped by their wings, one of which had lodged itself into the soft metal underneath the grove and the other of which had bent itself at a ridiculous angle that connected with the ground as well. “What language do you speak?” Bumblebee asked in the minibot’s own dialect.

 “What?” the flyer replied in what Bumblebee recognized as the language a few of the tribe’s mates spoke. Alright, he could communicate with him a bit at least.

 “I asked what language you speak,” Bumblebee said. Slag he could feel the energon leaking from a broken leg. “Citymech?”

 “Does it matter?” The flyer asked irritated.  

Bumblebee attempted to nod and his helm split in pain, “Yes. That means I’ll need one of us who speak that to stay with you during treatment.”

 “I’ll be fine,” the flyer said.

Bumblebee said, “There is a difference between fine and good,” in the city dialect before slipping into his own to add, “But if you don’t care neither do I.”

 “A great deal of help you are,” the flyer muttered before groaning in pain and going limp on top of the minibot.

_Great_ Bumblebee thought to himself. Maybe it would have been better for the cycles to slide into one another on this particular day.

* * *

“How is he?” Bumblebee asked leaning on the cane Fix-It had given him after putting a splint on his busted leg.

 “Okay I think,” Swerve said poking at the bindings on the flyer’s wings, “I mean he can walk but it’s not like I exactly know how to fix wings.”

 “Could Cyclonus help?” Bumblebee asked running a digit over the less damaged of the flyer’s two wings.

 “Has Cyclonus been helpful a cycle of his life?” Swerve replied. He repositioned a few pillows slightly so the flyer’s wings weren’t against the ground. “He has a different type of wings anyways. It would be like asking if a minibot could fix a metro titan since we both are grounders.”

 “True.” Bumblebee couldn’t look away from the red mech. Sure he wasn’t crushing the minibot but to Bumblebee he might as well have been. The red paint of his torso gleamed in a way only citymechs finish ever did, however his wings were in stark contrast with their scraped exposed metal. The exposed metal didn’t glimmer or gleam but was an utterly ugly and utterly matte metal that looked cheaper than what the minibot tribe would use for even temporary patching. He was a pretty mech for sure but Bumblebee could guess the moment the flyer ran into something as small as a drone in uncleared airspace it would harm him.

Bumblebee could only guess what made the mech think flying in the wilderness would be a safe bet. He wouldn’t let one of his mechs gather with a soft spot that large on them, let alone let them go it  alone like that. No-if that was all they could use for a repair they would be on cooking duty or farming until the tribe could pay for better supplies. Then again since the minibots had yet to see anyone looking for the mech perhaps it didn’t have a tribe and couldn’t simply put himself on alternative duty. “When he wakes up call me in. If he can tell us his frame type I’ll tell Jipe to ask about some medical files for it next time we send traders into town.”

“Do we seriously have the resources for that?” Swerve asked. “Didn’t this mech ruin your latest gathering?”

“I can gather elsewhere,” Bumblebee said forcing himself to look away from the flyer, “And I have my personal stock I can trade as well.”

“Whatever you say boss,” Swerve replied and Bumblebee. “Your stock your rules.”


	2. Starscream

“I’m glad you’re awake,” said heavily accented voice Starscream couldn’t quiet place. “I’ll tell Fix-It you can take energon yourself.”

“What?” Starscream asked as he shifted himself to face the voice. The yellow minibot. The memories of his crash flooded Starscream’s processor and caused a shiver down his spinal strut.

The minibot pulled a jar of energon from a shelf and handed it to him. “We were going to have to-I’m forgetting the word?” The face of the minibot scrunched for a moment in thought before tapping his own arm, “When you put in energon here.”

“A drip?” Starscream asked taking the jar, “Do you even have them out here on a farm?”

“Obviously,” the mech replied indignantly before taking a seat next to the padding Starscream laid on. “But getting the equipment for it is not an easy trade, so it is better you can do that yourself.”

“Thanks,” Starscream replied half-heartedly before taking a sip of the energon proffered to him. “My team will happily bring enough energon to replace this once they get here. Can I see the comm to reach them?”

“Comm?” The minibot asked tilting his head.

“Yes the comm. I know you farmers ration your energy but it will take a whole lot less to let me call my men than have you treat me for goodness knows how long.” Starscream rolled his optics, “So where is it?”

“We aren’t farmers,” the minibot replied, “We’re Minibots.”

“Alright then. Where do you minibots keep your comm?” Starscream wasn’t in the mood to entertain the local’s insistent vocabulary but whatever got him home and his wings under a nice solvent bath was worth it at this point.

The minibots optics widened. “Oh. You think we’re country mechs.” He patted Starscream on the helm, “We’re a tribe.”

It was now Starscream’s turn to widen his optics, “Barbarians?”

“If that’s your word for it,” the mech said. “You are a citymech, right?”

“Yes,” Starscream replied hesitantly. “You’re the one that got me?”

The mech nodded, “I’m Bumblebee by the way, leader of the Minibot Tribe.”

Starscream examined the minibot-Bumblebee. He didn’t look all that intimidating with his curved plating and short stature but his servos the mech none the less showed the nicks and dings associated with hard work and no polish.

“So um…what comes next?” Starscream asked. “I don’t think I can move.”

 “That’s alright,” the mech said standing up again, “Swerve has wanted a roommate forever, and if he gets to be too much I can get you audial plugs.”

“Wait.” Starscream looked at Bumblebee, “You’re the one that got me.” None of the romances he read involved sharing. That yellow mech was clearly no match for him once he was healed, but he could only imagine not everyone in the tribe could be that much of a pushover.  “Why am I staying with Swerve?”

“Would you rather stay with someone who speaks your language?” Bumblebee asked, “We only have five  mechs that do and they already have tentmates.”

“You speak my language,” Starscream said plainly.

Bumblebee nodded, “Fine. When I can get help to move you to my tent I will.”

Starscream could only hope that he was able to find anything in that tent to boost his internal comm system to the point his trine could pick up his location.

* * *

Compared to the medic’s tent Bumblebee’s tent was utterly opulent. In place of pillows and cushions lay a proper, albeit thin berth and the free-standing shelves held several dozen data pads and jars upon jars of energon. Starscream wondered if the shelving had some sort of biometrics that would only let his host grab the jars or if Bumblebee was truly well off enough to leave his energon stores in the open where anyone could steal it.

There were a few techno-plants lying around in pots, however none were coming from the ground which was covered with colorful tarp. Best of all there was an unguarded blaster on one of the shelves that Starscream was almost positive he could get to the moment his pede could support weight. With a bit of effort on his trine’s part Starscream was certain that the energon alone could sustain them for a mega-cycle, and after selling the wares they could last even longer.

Bumblebee, for his part, neither seemed to realize nor care his berth guest was plotting as he checked a few of his data pads. “What is your frame type?” The minibot asked.

“Um, seeker?” Starscream replied hesitantly.

“Yes!” Bumblebee exclaimed, “We have a data file on them. Fix-It and Swerve can fix you up in no time now.” The minibot kept his excitement for a moment before a slight frown took its place. “It is in your language though. Mind helping them translate?”

Starscream had no clue how to answer. The sooner his wings were fixed the sooner he could leave, but at the same time he wasn’t sure he trusted barbarian ‘medics’, especially those working under the mech who’s berth he was currently in. Then again if he could be sure to only translate the parts that could help him, unless they just wanted the information to remove his wings. “I’m not a medic,” he replied hesitantly, “I might not understand it all myself.”

“Fair enough,” Bumblebee replied, “I’ll just throw it at Glyph next time she’s in for trading.”

“When is that?” Starscream asked.

Bumblebee sighed, “Soon. I’m going to get some cushions out from Swerve’s tent, no way that berth is big enough for two.”

 _Wait, what?_ Starscream couldn’t believe his audials. Maybe it would be worth asking more questions in the day that followed, this clearly wasn’t one of the romance novels Starscream denied he read.


	3. Bumblebee

_Dear Starscream_

_I have work to attend to. If you are in pain ask for Swerve or Fix-It. If you need energon take a jar. For anything else ask for Tailgate or Rewind, they can speak your language. I should be back to my tent by midday rations._

_-Bumblebee_

After several attempts Bumblebee finally was satisfied enough with his note to Starscream to leave the tent. First things first he had to visit the mechs he had volunteered for interpreter duty. “Tailgate, Cyclonus. Are you decent?” He asked as he approached their tent’s flap.

“Yes.” The minibot yelled. None the less Bumblebee waited for the flap to open before entering the tent.

“Good morning,” Bumblebee said. He took a seat on a small rug and pulled out a box from his subspace, “I brought sweets.”

“What do you want?” Cyclonus asked grabbing the box and looking at its contents with cool approval.

Bumblebee sighed at that. “Fine. The mech from the crash is a city mech. I was hoping you and your mate would be willing to help him today if he needs to talk to anyone.”

“Sure!” Tailgate replied happily, “We’d love to help.”

“You’d love to help,” Cyclonus muttered to his mate.

Not missing a nano-klik Tailgate added, “And you love making me happy. So we’d love to help.”

“Thanks Tailgate.” Bumblebee said before pushing himself back to his pedes. “Feel free to call me if he gets,” he gestured vaguely, “To be a bit much. Oh, and he seems scared so I wouldn’t hold much against him.”

“Like I can’t handle that,” the white minibot said as his visor gleamed slightly at his mate.

“Can you two let the other speakers know?” Bumblebee asked, “We’re a day behind on the grove right now and I am not in the mood to make that two.”

Tailgate snatched the box of sweets from his mate and returned it to Bumblebee, “Then keep this.”

Bumblebee smiled at that, goodness he loved his tribe.

* * *

“You missed a bit Freeway,” Bumblebee said. The mech looked at the cyberflower and pointed to a bit of nectar that could still be vacuumed. “If you miss that much every time we’ll be short.” The leader sighed slightly, “Look. You don’t need to go fast. Go as slow as you need but get all of it. If you only get to half of the plants before I get better that means I only need to deal with half of what I would need to otherwise.” He patted the mech’s shoulder, “But if you only get half out of every plant I’ll need to do it all over again.”

“Sorry,” the mech said looking down at his work.

“I know harvesting is a tall order,” Bumblebee patted Freeway’s shoulder plating, “When I am better how about you take a deca-cycle off and I’ll handle the distilling for you.”

“Thank you boss,” Freeway said, “Now how about you get back to your tent before Fix-It yells at you.”

“I’m fine,” Bumblebee said. The mech straightened himself and shifted his weight from the cane to his good leg as if to prove it. “But I guess it is getting close to midday rations.”

“Exactly,” the other minibot said pushing his leader lightly to the tents, “So get your rations and rest.”

* * *

Upon walking in Bumblebee noted the flyer hadn’t moved since he had left the sleeping mech. “Starscream?” He asked hesitantly, “Are you awake?”

“Yes.” The flyer said groggily. “Is it midday already?”

“Yes,” Bumblebee said. “You know you can leave the tent, right? Your legs are fine.”

“I didn’t want to risk it.” Starscream said. The mech pushed himself into a seated position on the berth.

Bumblebee did his best to hold back a laugh at that. “Stop being so dramatic. You aren’t going to hurt yourself going outside.”

“I’m not worried about hurting myself,” Starscream said. “Do you have any medical grade energon?”

Bumblebee shook his head. If the city mech wasn’t worried about hurting himself why keep himself cooped up in a tent. Half the time Bumblebee didn’t even want to spend evenings in his tent and right now he’d like nothing more than to take his rations with his mechs outside. “That is more nutrient dense, right?”

“Yes. And it has metals in it to help self-repairs. It tastes horrible but gets the job done” Starscream said, “Or I could take the supplements straight if you don’t dissolve them in energon.”

“We have food with metal in it but you might not like it,” Bumblebee said with a frown, “You city mechs will engineer Primus only knows what to replace something in nature you find unpleasant.”  

“Just give me whatever it is,” Starscream said, “The sooner my wing can self-repair the better.”

“Don’t complain,” Bumblebee said as he picked a jar of warwhale meat off of one of his shelves. “And don’t waste it. It has as much energy as an energon goodie but twice the nutrients.” The meat also had half the taste of an energon goodie but the flyer didn’t need to know that.

“Thank you,” Starscream said taking the jar and giving it a quick sniff before opening his mouth and letting a bit of the meat in. The look on his faceplates was priceless, Bumblebee thought.

“I told you not to complain,” the leader said with a smile, “You have no clue how rare that is.”

“I wasn’t complaining!” Starscream said taking another hesitant slurp of the liquid before picking out a piece of meat from the jar and hesitantly biting into it. “Just reacting.”

“Whatever,” Bumblebee said taking a jar of strained energon for himself, “I can’t wait to see how you ‘react’ if you’re still here during hunting season.”

“If?” Starscream asked taking another bite of his meal. “I can leave before hunting season? How long is that?”

“A stellar-cycle away. We don’t have flyers. I know I’ll be healed long before then though so,” Bumblebee shrugged, “If.”

Starscream raised an optic ridge at that, “Can I ask some questions?”

“Of course.” Bumblebee said, “You just did, didn’t you?”

That got a small smile from the flyer and Bumblebee couldn’t help but think how nice that looked.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Starscream said returning his lipplates to a frown. “So lets get started.”

“Lets,” Bumblebee said nodding figuring if nothing else this should be interesting.  


	4. Starscream

“So what do you want to ask?” The minibot asked taking a seat on the ground.  

Starscream thought for a moment and decided that he didn’t want to start asking about interface outright. “How far away are we from Vos? My tracking device failed on me before the crash.”

“Vos,” the minibot chirped back at him, “Far. You can go supersonic can’t you?”

Starscream nodded in response, “Can anyone in your tribe?”

“Two,” Bumblebee said, “One of ours and one of the mates in our tribe. I can’t go faster than a hundred kilometers per cycle to save my life though.”

“So how fast would it be for me?” Starscream asked, “And could one of your fliers take me?”

Bumblebee chuckled at that, “Comos is my size and Cyclonus is big, but not that big.” He thought for a second before continuing, “It would take you a few cycles of flying, me a few mega-cycles of driving, but seeing as we’re both injured it would take either of us a few deca-cycles of walking at least. Me longer because of well,” the minibot waved his cane slightly.”

“You’d go with me?” Not the question he was going to ask next, but Starscream couldn’t help himself.

The minibot shrugged, “I mean a citymech isn’t going to make it on his own. Can you hunt? Can you even find tar sands or oil shale?”

Starscream almost retorted asking what tar sands were but thought better of it and bit his glossa. “And they say chivalry died with the knights.”

“Are you telling me if I was wounded outside your door you wouldn’t see me home?” The chief asked.

“My door is nearly twelve kilometers up, if you were wounded outside it you’d be dead.” Starscream replied, “But I suppose I’d at the very least take you to the hospital.”

“I took you to my medic,” Bumblebee said plainly, “They weren’t able to fix you. Are you telling me if the hospital couldn’t help me you wouldn’t continue?”

“If the hospital couldn’t treat you we’d have bigger issues than me taking you back to the tribe,” Starscream replied with a light growl.

“And they call us barbarians,” Bumblebee muttered. “Look, we will take care of you until you can take care of yourself. Is that what you were worried about?”

 _Being taken care of is exactly what I’m worried about._ Starscream blushed at the thought. “I, I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean medics can cure anything that is curable in a hospital but,” Starscream shook his head. “You’d take me yourself? Is that because you are the chief or because you were the one that found me? Or-something else?”

“Because you crashed into me,” Bumblebee said. He grinned, “But being a chief help, it can get me into the city a bit easier than most of my tribe.”

Starscream nodded, “Do you go into cities often then?”

“We have traders that come and go from them,” he said noncommittally, “The last time we spent real time in one was when one of our tribesmen became mates with a city mech. They were very insistent on bonding in a city ceremony.”

Starscream’s wings ached as they perked up. He had his in! “That’s what I wanted to know about actually.”

“Oh! Their names are Tailgate and Cyclonus,” Bumblebee said. “Sweet mechs, well Tailgate is at least.”

“I actually meant about the bonding part,” Starscream said. He could feel his blush shifting from his cheeks to his entire face. “Well the city has heard…things about barbarians and how they take mates.”

“Seriously?” Bumblebee asked, “You give me this run around about how far you are from Vos and this whole time you want to know that?”

A sink hole could swallow him into the ground in this moment and Starscream would be grateful. “Yes,” he admitted.

Bumblebee shrugged, “I guess we do go a bit slow by citymech standards.”

“Wait, what?” Crashing into the minibot was nothing compared to how utterly floored Starscream was at that statement.

“What do you mean what?” Bumblebee asked.

Starscream put a servo over his face in some vain hope if he couldn’t see the minibot the minibot wouldn’t be able to see him. “Nothing, just tell me how it goes in the tribes.”

“Okay,” Bumblebee said hesitantly, “When you find a mech you wish to court you initiate the four acts. Sometimes the acts go quickly, other times they take eons. Sometimes acts are completed before formal initiation, but once the four acts are complete if the mechs agree they are mates. Simple as that. None of that whole formal paperwork thing you citymechs like, but a bit more personal.”

“Oh,” Starscream said removing the servo from his face. “That is not what they say in Vos.”  

“What do they say in Vos?” Bumblebee grinned at him, “I’ve heard the one about chiefs needing to approve mates. Trust me if that was the case that citymech I mentioned would not be part of our tribe.”

“I mean there is that one but others that are well,” Starscream looked at the mat under them, “If I tell you will you think lesser of me?”

“That bad?” Bumblebee asked, “I’ll think less of Vos, not of you. Now spill!”

 _Oh Primus_ Starscream thought. He really would rather not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for how dialog heavy this chapter is. Hopefully this is the last time I do anything as dialogue dense in this fic though (fun things are coming though, I promise)


	5. Bumblebee

It took every last bit of Bumblebee’s self-control to not open some high grade and lounge to fully enjoy this unexpected entertainment. He knew that citymechs had less than kind rumors about “barbarians” but to the credit of the few in his tribe none of them had ever talked much about it. If Bumblebee was being completely honest with himself he sort of enjoyed some of the aura of terror that seemed to follow the tribes where citymechs were concerned, it meant that the tribes rarely had to fight against cities since they were terrified. There was something to be said about seeing mechs three times his size be afraid of the minibot tribe that Bumblebee couldn’t find himself complaining about, well there was something about it he couldn’t find himself complaining about normally. It was one thing when citymechs gave the minibots better trades than they could get with other tribes, but seeing the mech in front of him terrified as if the tribe would harm an injured guest was far from ideal.

“Are you sure?” Starscream asked yet again. “I’d love to meet that other citymech you mentioned.” The mechs optics moved to Bumblebee’s cane, “I could carry you there and everything.”

Bumblebee laughed. “Now you’re friendly. Come on Starscream! I gave you my best food, you can tell me what citymechs think we do to get mates.”

“Do you read common?” Starscream asked Bumblebee.

Bumblebee pursed his lips for a moment before answering, “No. Why?”

“Well,” Starscream rustled around his subspace for a moment before pulling out a few datapads, “This is what we think about what you do. It is a pretty popular genre of romance novels.”

“So how about you give me a book report?” Bumblebee asked the flyer with a grin, “Or read some to me. I’m clearly less picky than you.” He had to laugh at the look Starscream gave him as Bumblebee grabbed a bit of the warwhale meat and slurped it down with a smile on his face.

“When you take me back to Vos I’ll order some food you’ll hate.” The flyer promised. “Then we’ll see who’s picky.”

“Stop changing the subject,” Bumblebee whined, “So romance novels. We have a few involving citymechs. They are always so uptight in the novels but,” he grinned before continuing, “I’m starting to think that’s true.”

“Are you going to keep making fun of me until I spill?” Starscream asked.

Bumblebee smiled yet again, “Maybe Screamer, maybe.” It was nice to see the red mech relax a bit even if it did involve poking fun at him waiting for the mech to poke back.

“The books normally start with some citymech who has gotten themselves lost in the plains or desert.” Starscream said powering on one of the datapads, “And then barbarians-a tribe I mean-comes across them.

_Oh Primus._ Bumblebee tried not to crack up. The flyer was attractive for sure but he hadn’t thought about courting him. Had that been what Starscream expected from him? Was that it?

“Then,” Starscream blushed, “Well a barbarian who fancies the citymech takes him in and well…you know.”

“No, I don’t know.” Bumblebee said, “That is why I’m asking. Clearly it isn’t taking care of the mech since you are so surprised I am.”

“Well they claim the mech.” Starscream said. “And then the mech has to get used to his mate and new tribe.”

“When you say claim do you mean-“Bumblebee started.

Starscream promptly cut him off, “Yes.”

“So this whole time you’ve been waiting for one of us to rape you?” Bumblebee buried his helm in his servos trying to process countless emotions at once. The chief was infuriated at citymechs for thinking so little of the tribes, but at the same time couldn’t find himself all that mad at Starscream himself. Starscream must have been terrified the last few days if that’s what he’d heard about the tribes, but then again Bumblebee was more than a little angry that the mech had spent the past few days with him and had thought Bumblebee was in any way, shape, or form that sort of mech.

“N-not you.” Starscream sputtered out, “I thought you were protecting me. I just didn’t know if you-some of the novels have a period where other mechs can try to challenge mechs for their mate and…” Starscream trailed off.

It was still bad. Bumblebee still couldn’t believe Starscream would think he would let anyone in his tribe hurt him, but at the same time he saw the slight flicker of fear in the other mech’s optics as Bumblebee’s plating puffed up in rage. “No wonder you didn’t want to leave the tent.”

“You said you wouldn’t be mad at me,” Starscream said quietly, as if it was an afterthought.

Bumblebee sighed, “How many novels are like this?”

“Too many to count,” Starscream admitted, “When we’re little our creators tell us not to leave the city or the barbarians will grab us, then when we’re a bit older well, curiosity sets in what that means and-“

“What do you think of my tribe now you’ve been with us a few days?” Bumblebee asked cutting Starscream off.

“I’ve only seen you and Swerve but-you’re nice,” Starscream trained his optics to the ground. “I should have realized you were an honorable mech and you would lead an honorable tribe.”

“I wish you had,” Bumblebee said coolly, “But truth be told the tribes hear the same stories in reverse.”

“Those ones might have a bit more truth to them,” Starscream admitted, “Unaccompanied grounders in Vos are…targets.”

“Is that why I’d have larger problems than just injury if I had shown up on your doorstep the way you showed up on mine?” Bumblebee sighed.  

“That is a factor,” Starscream said. “Can we change the topic?” He glanced guiltily at Bumblebee, “Please?”

“Of course Starscream,” Bumblebee said nodding, “You’ve had a rough few days.”

“You mentioned the four acts”, Starscream started, “-are they the same as they are in the city?”

“Yes,” Bumblebee replied looking at the other mech, “Why?”

“I was only wondering.” Starscream replied returning his gaze to the floor. “Do you have any more questions for me?”

“Just one,” Bumblebee said, “Can I borrow those novels? I’m curious to have one of the citymechs translate one for me.”

“Of course,” Starscream said with a slight smile, “Thank you Bumblebee.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes the rating increased. The next chapter should be fun.


	6. Interlude: Bookclub

“Hey Soundwave,” Cosmos said as his mate entered their tent.

“Cosmos,” Soundwave replied. The mech took a seat next to his mate and nuzzled the minibot. “How was your day?”

 “Interesting,” Cosmos admitted nuzzling his mate back. “The chief gave some of us novels from the citymech to translate.”

“What was it?” Soundwave asked. Cosmos wordlessly handed the datapad over with a gleam in his optics. “Oh.” Soundwave said, “I haven’t seen one of these in ages.”

“Ages as in how long you’ve been with the tribe, or ages in you stopped reading them before the we met?”

“The second”, Soundwave said with the slightest glint of his own visor, “I always preferred the romance novels involving alien abductions.”  

“Well then,” Cosmos said playfully, “I was going to suggest we use my tractor beam to be a big scary barbarian but I could make that work for that second one you mentioned too.”

“Please,” Soundwave replied breathlessly.  

Cosmos was more than happy to oblige and enabled his tractor beam on its lightest setting before going to work tracing the seems of his mate’s chest. “Tell me if you need me to turn it off, okay?”

“Affirmative,” Soundwave said. The mech wanted nothing more than to lean into the ridiculously light touches of his partner. Cosmos continued his work brushing over seems on Soundwave slowly moving down his stomach. Soundwave experienced a moment of relief when a servo finally made its way to his interface panel, however the relief was short lived when he heard mechs approaching. “The cassettes are back.”

Cosmos sighed and turned off his tractor beam. “Want to pick this up tonight then?”

“Of course,” Soundwave said pulling Cosmos closer to nuzzle the mech more.

“Gross,” Frenzy said as he burst into the tent.

Rumble pulled a jar of energon from the shelf, “Can you two save that for when you don’t invite us to lunch?”

“Can you two warn us before inviting yourself to lunch?” Cosmos retorted. Not that he minded all that much, the interruption just gave him more time to think about how he wanted to approach using his tractor beam with Soundwave later that night.

* * *

“You could have told us you were into this,” Rewind said as he secured Chromedome’s servos behind his back.

Dominus kissed Chromedome’s neck, “Poor Domey had a conjunx named Dominus this whole time and didn’t ask me to live up to my name.” He patted the mech’s mask before crawling off his lap, “We have to make up for that, don’t we Rewind?”

“You know Domey, you could have told us you were into this even when we were back in the city." Rewind replied circling around to Chromedome’s front. “And you,” he said happily poking the larger mech’s battle mask, “I guess we can't change the past though. Just relax and let us take care of you.”

“Okay,” Chromedome replied happily letting his shoulders go lax. “Do your worst.”

* * *

 “Ready to get started?” Tailgate asked his partner planting quick nuzzle to Cyclonus’s helm.

Cyclonus nodded, “And you’re okay with it?”

“To ‘face with you?” Tailgate let out a laugh before grabbing the datapad from Cyclonus, “I’m always okay with that. Are you still okay with this?”

Cyclonus nodded. “I’m always okay with interfacing with you.”

“Alright just remember, the safe word is Kremzeek.” Tailgate opened the novel he had been given on and started browsing the first chapter, “Well I’ve already ‘caught’ you and brought you home.”

“I’d ask what your courting gift is but since you didn’t take that candy earlier,” Cyclonus said, “I’ll take it that you consider what you’re going to do to me gift enough.”

“You don’t even like candy!” Tailgate said with a giggle before shaking himself slightly in hopes of pushing himself back in character. “I mean watch your mouth citymech. That glossa could get you into trouble?” He looked at his partner and his spark fluttered when Cyclonus gave an approving nod.

Tailgate scanned a few more pages until he finally hit one of the interface scenes. “Okay so this says ‘the vicious barbarian pushed the poor citymech to the ground,’” Tailgate then paused to lightly push Cyclonus’s stomach and patted his mate’s leg when Cyclonus obliged and laid back. “And forced his interface panel open. Um Cy do you just want to pop that for me?”

“You mean you don’t want to explain to Swerve why my interface panel broke?” Cyclonus chided before popping the panel as asked.

“Yeah I haven’t gotten to the end yet but I feel like this tribe’s medic isn’t the nomad’s best friend.” Tailgate said happily, “Oh alright,” he added reading onward, “Now the barbarian takes his partner so,” the minibot beamed and popped his own panel, “Get ready you helpless little city mech.”

“Primus help me,” Cyclonus muttered looking at his mate above him. It was going to be so hard to keep himself from pulling Tailgate on top of him and makin."g the mech go faster, and that glint in Tailgate’s visor was making it all the more difficult.

* * *

 “We’ve gotta ask for more of this next time we trade with city mechs,” Tailgate said with his visor gleaming.

“It was pretty fun,” Cosmos admitted blushing.

"If I knew the city-porn trade would be so lucrative Dom, Domey and I would have taken more with us when we left for the tribe."

That caused all citybots and mates gathered to laugh. Hopefully the translation would be just as amusing for their chief.


	7. Starscream

The previous morning Starscream was overjoyed when he woke alone in Bumblebee’s tent, however as he woke on his third day with the tribe Starscream found himself disappointed that the chief hadn’t at least left a note like he had the previous day. Not that he was surprised. Starscream sat up and hesitantly attempted to move his wings, however all he managed was a twitch or two of his left wing before both drooped down once again utterly aching.

Starscream should have listened to Thundercracker and brought a first aid kit. Sure, his wings couldn’t be fixed with some bandages but he would happily have some real medical grade supplements around now and something to dull his sensory input about now. The mech couldn’t help but wonder if his trine was looking for him yet. He knew they would eventually, but at the same time with Vosian paperwork it could take ages for them to actually launch a formal search. The plains and deserts were so wide as well, Starscream couldn’t imagine where he’d start looking for his trinemates if their roles had been reversed. He currently wouldn’t bother checking if they were with a tribe of such small mechs, if anything Starscream would start his search with plenty of blasters, a few extra seekers, and searching tribes that didn’t look like they could be blown over in a stiff breeze.

The flyer ultimately didn’t have much time to ponder any potential search attempts for long however when he realized his tanks were running on low. Starscream reluctantly pushed himself up to his pedes and slowly started examining the various jars that lined the shelves. The energon was easy enough to make out, as was the energon goodies, however he couldn’t place the jars of oddly colored metallic sludges and chunks as belonging to any of the few animals he knew were consumed within the city. One of those jars would probably doo his wings well, however he didn’t want to wait for Bumblebee to explain which was which and ultimately settled on drinking half a jar of energon to quell the worst of his hunger.

From that point Starscream took to exploring the data pads the chief kept on his shelves but found ultimately discovered the only one in his language was the seeker frame manual that Bumblebee had pulled out the first day following the crash. Absentmindedly Starscream reached into his subspace for one of his own datapads before remembering he had given them to Bumblebee meaning there was absolutely nothing of interest to occupy him in the tent. Starscream could either be bored for the day or he could go outside and risk utter embarrassment. The flyer debated for several kliks before deciding he would deal with embarrassment that day whenever Bumblebee returned to his tent, and embarrassment and entertainment sure beat the slag out of entertainment and boredom. Or at least that was what Starscream thought before leaving the tent.

Starscream stepping outside the tent itself was easy enough and didn’t garner much attention, however as soon as he started walking through the rows of tents trying to find something of interest he could feel the optics of the mechs he passed searing into him. Okay, maybe not searing, but definitely looking and looking longer than the normal ‘lets see who’s passing me’ look he garnered in Vos. Starscream subconsciously dropped his wings lower than their relaxed droop to lie flat against his frame, grumbling in pain upon succeeding and remembering the wings weren’t what was out of place, his height was.

Realizing that stealth was completely out of the picture Starscream turned to a small grouping of the minibots and asked, “Are any of you the ones Bumblebee said could speak common?”

“Common?” A particularly strange looking white, yellow, and blue mech parroted back.

“Yes, common. Or Vosian.” Starscream replied hopefully.

Alas the minibot shook his helm and Starscream started to ask another group of minibots, however then the barbarian took Starscream’s servo into his own and began pulling the flyer along _. He can’t hurt you, he can’t hurt you_ , Starscream repeated to himself time and time again inside his head all while wondering if those two little rotors could cut his frame if moving fast enough. The minibot weaved their way through the tents before stopping in front of one, yelling something, and dropping Starscream’s servo. 

A mostly white minibot exited the tent and said a few words to the minibot that had taken Starscream there, causing both to chuckle, before switching to the accented common Bumblebee used, “Primus you look terrified,” the mech said to Starscream, “Don’t worry, we weren’t laughing at you.” The minibot stuck out a servo, “I’m Tailgate, and that is Beachcomber.”

“I’m Starscream,” Starscream replied shaking Tailgate’s servo. “I asked for someone who spoke common and your friend dragged me here. I hope I’m not bothering you.”

“Not at all. The only thing I was going to do today was work on translating a bit more of that novel of yours,” Tailgate turned to his tent and opened the entryway and Starscream was all too glad that the minibot couldn’t see the flyer blush.

“Oh about that, I can explain- “Starscream started as he ducked into the entry way before getting cut off by the smaller mech.

“You don’t have to,” Tailgate said plainly before sitting on a ridiculously small cushion. “You can sit on one of the big ones.” The minibot motioned to a few larger cushions placed sporadically throughout the tent, “Cy is out hunting so its not like he needs them.”

“Cy?” Starscream asked before deciding on a large red cushion and moving it closer to his host’s own seat.

“Cyclonus, my conjunx,” Tailgate explained, “He’s out hunting for the day so we won’t need the cushions until he gets home, and even then we only need one unless his amica is staying for dinner.”

“And they’re both city mechs?” Starscream asked his host.

“Whirl is a nomad, he’s technically a hermit but he spends half his time in our tribe so,” Tailgate shrugged, “But Cyclonus is a city mech.”

“Is that how you know common?” Starscream asked the minibot.

Tailgate nodded, “And how he knows minibot. It goes both ways.”

“I guess you’re right,” Starscream said with a shrug that triggered a new wave of pain.

“Primus, lets get you to a medic,” Tailgate said standing up, “Can you walk?”

“Of course,” Starscream said. “My wings aren’t my pedes.”

“Well aren’t you a grumpy Gus,” Tailgate replied before fastening the tent’s opening, “Luckily for you I’m used to dealing with those.”


	8. Bumblebee

Bumblebee didn’t know if he was pleased or concerned when he entered his tent and didn’t see the flyer in it. Starscream had taken his blaster but it wasn’t like the blaster was actually charged, Bumblebee had just kept it to scare city mechs. The chief picked up a half drank jar of energon that was next to the berth and moved it back to a shelf and did a quick inventory to find the red mech hadn’t drank or eaten anything else in the tent.

Now it was just a matter of finding Starscream. The mech couldn’t have been looking for him or someone would have pointed the flyer in the direction of the groves. The mech was also far too tall to hide at least, and if he had attempted to leave the camp someone would be able to point Bumblebee in the flyer’s direction before Starscream passed out from lack of fuel. Not that tracking Starscream would help with his assumptions of the tribes but Bumblebee wasn’t about to let him die. At the very least if Starscream was insistent on leaving before the minibots moved their camp Bumblebee would teach him how to find fuel before setting out on his own. Ultimately, though, Bumblebee had to fuel himself before focusing on keeping Starscream fueled. Bumblebee settled on the half full jar of energon Starscream hadn’t finished and set out.

Setting out might have been an overexaggerating on Bumblebee’s part. He made it ten steps out of his tent before Bumper walked up to him and said, “That flyer is so tall. Does he even fit in your berth chief?”

“His legs hang off of it,” Bumblebee said, “Did you see where he went today?”

“I saw him going to the medical tent a while back,” Bumper said. “Does he bump his head on doorways?

“I don’t know,” Bumblebee said with a shrug. “I haven’t seen him enter or leave any tents.”

“I bet he does.” Bumper said. “Gosh and I bet the buildings where he’s from are giant.”

“He said they were,” Bumblebee replied. “But I know as little about him as any of you guys.”

“Fair enough,” Bumper replied. “Tell him I say hi. I don’t speak common but I can watch him for a day.”

Bumblebee rolled his optics, “I doubt he’ll take you up on that, but I’ll let him know.”

* * *

“I don’t think that’s how wings work,” Tailgate said watching Swerve work on bandaging. “Cy uses that bit to navigate, you can stabilize the top but the bottom needs to be open.”

“He’ll need it open to fly but he won’t be able to do that until his wing heals so I might as well stabilize it so he doesn’t hurt the rest of his wing moving that part,” Swerve replied putting bandages over the aforementioned area of Starscream’s wing that had previously been unbound.

“Too tight,” Starscream said in common leading Tailgate to translate with smug satisfaction.

“Fine,” Swerve grumbled, “But if that flap moving causes strain to the rest of the wing its getting wrapped next mega-cycle.”

“It wiggles when he sleeps,” Bumblebee added as he stepped into the medical tent. “Maybe if you bound it horizontally instead of vertically?” He nodded in acknowledgement to Starscream and switched to common to address the flyer. “It is good to see you out and about.”

Starscream nodded in Bumblebee’s vague direction in acknowledgement. “Just give me a mirror and I can bandage myself.”

“You were right about him being a bit much,” Tailgate said to Bumblebee in the minibots dialect causing the chief to laugh.

“I told you,” Bumblebee replied before switching to common once again. “Starscream, just let Swerve do his job. We can rewrap it in my tent if you can’t handle it.”

“What were you two talking about?” Starscream asked, “And I can handle it but I shouldn’t have to. You don’t wrap that part of a wing.”

Bumblebee sighed and walked over to the flyer, “Like I said, do what Swerve wants and we can change it later. And Tailgate was just saying I described you well to him.”

“No way that’s what you said,” Starscream said with wings drooping, “I can’t speak your language, I’m not an idiot.”

“Fine. I told him you can be a bit much to handle,” Bumblebee said before taking a cushion and sitting next to the flyer, “He agreed. Like I said he said I described you well.”

“Do you do that with the citybots a lot?” Starscream grumbled, “Oh they can’t speak minibot lets make fun of them.”

“No,” Tailgate chimed in, “You’re the only one in the tribe who can’t understand our language.”

Bumblebee nodded, “We don’t speak common to our mates when they move into the tribe anyways.” Bumblebee shrugged before continuing, “Immersion leads to learning the language faster.”

“How long does that take to work?” Starscream asked.

“It varies. Some mates learn in no time at all, other mates take a while.” Bumblebee said with another shrug. “It isn’t one size fit all.”

“If you’re so insistent on not speaking common in the camp why are you bothering with me?” Starscream asked.

“You didn’t choose to be here.” Bumblebee said plainly, “Our mates have already gone through courting and have decided to become betrothed to a tribe member. You crashed into us. You deserve to know what is being said to you fully.”

“Would it be possible to learn the language without full immersion?” Starscream asked, “I hate being left in the dark.”

“I don’t see why not,” Bumblebee replied with a slight smile. “Lets get started,” Bumblebee said, “You should learn how to say medic first so Swerve,” he pointed at the minibot before switching into his own tongue, “Is a medic.”

“Medic,” Starscream repeated in the minibot language.

“Good,” Bumblebee said in common. “You’ve had a busy day. There will be dinner outside tonight when the hunters get back. Do you want to stay here or go back to the tent until then?”

“The tent,” Starscream said, “Then you can help me rebandage my wings.”

Bumblebee laughed at that. “You’re doing the same thing with Swerve we were doing to you. You realize that, right?”

“So keep on teaching me your language so I can tell it to his face,” Starscream replied.

Bumblebee laughed yet again with Starscream before nodding, “Then lets get started.”


	9. Starscream

“ _Wings_ ,” Starscream repeated with exaggerated facial movements to make sure he was pronouncing it same as the other mech.

“ _Good_!” Bumblebee said in the minibot language.

“Thanks,” Starscream said returning to common and blushing slightly. “So Tailgate mentioned you gave him one of my datapads. Will everyone at dinner know that um…” he said trailing off.

“No,” Bumblebee said, “I just gave one a piece to couples that could translate for me.”

“And how likely are they to um, spill?” Starscream said turning his optics to the ground.

Bumblebee couldn’t help but grin as he replied, “Considering all the couples have other city mechs in them, I’d say a grand total of zero chance.”

“So other than Tailgate’s mate how many of them are there?” Starscream asked, “And are any from Vos?”

“Three, Tailgate’s mate, Dominus and Rewind’s mate, and Cosmos’s mate, and none of them are from Vos, sorry,” The minibot replied before patting Starscream’s shoulder. “Homesick already?”

“Wouldn’t you be?” Starscream said. He frowned before continuing, “It is worse now I know you aren’t keeping me here.”

“Would it help if I told you if you ran off now I’d drag you back? I’m not about to let you starve in the desert.” Bumblebee asked.

Starscream blushed slightly at that. “It makes it worse Bee, I injured your leg, am taking your energon, and accused you of being a rapist. The fact you’re so nice is making it worse.”

“The desert would kill us all without pity,” the minibot said patting Starscream’s shoulder yet again, “So tribes have to stick together. What little I know of cities is they work the other way around,” Bumblebee paused and drew his approximation of a city with a digit in the dirt. “Cities won’t kill you they are built to protect you,” he waved a servo towards the wall he had drawn, “But the mechs will.”

“If you know that much why treat a city mech nicely then?” Starscream asked still frowning.

“If you hurt me on purpose my tribe would kill you,” Bumblebee said plainly, “And if you ran the desert would kill you. You don’t seem like you want to die, so why hurt me?”

“Fair enough. Then how about you try this one for size,” Starscream said. “If you know the desert and plains are dangerous while the cities are safe why not move to one with your men? You could keep an optic out for those who would hurt you just as easily as you can keep an optic out for each other against the elements.”

“It isn’t a life for us.” Bumblebee said. “During my rule I have seen three city mechs join our tribe happily, I have never seen one of ours join a city for longer than a month and have it stick. You have wings, why keep yourself hauled up in a city instead of stretching them?”

“Would one of your men drive to stretch their wheels if you told them not to?” Starscream asked the minibot back.

“No, they wouldn’t need to ask.” Bumblebee said, “If they asked it would be to get a check in on the weather, and then they’d ask Cosmos.”

“So ‘wing’,” Starscream repeated in hopes of changing the subject. “How do I finish saying thank you for bandaging my wing?”

“ _Thank you for bandaging my wing_.” Bumblebee said in his own language once more.

“ _Thank you for bandaging my wing,”_ Starscream replied.

“Good!” Bumblebee said, practically beaming.

* * *

Starscream was in awe when he watched two mechs around his same size drag an animal carcass into the camp. “How?” He asked the chief, however Bumblebee was already rushing to the mechs and talking to them in his own language using exactly none of the ten words Starscream had learned so far.

After a few kliks the minibot returned to Starscream and said, “Want to go into the tent until dinner is prepped, or do you want to learn how to strip a mechanimal?”

“Should I learn how to strip a mechanimal?” Was the only response that Starscream could manage to work out of his processor.

“If you want to journey back to Vos and your wings don’t get back in working order it is a good idea.” Bumblebee said. “Or if you want to try and offline me. That blaster doesn’t work but the knife I’ll give you sure does.”

“Okay, show me,” Starscream said sitting next to the carcass.

Bumblebee’s optics widened in shock, but none the less sat next to Starscream. “The most important step in stripping any mechanimal is making sure you don’t cut into any organs that will taint the meat.” Bumblebee pointed to a spot near the carcass’s stomach, “Cut there for example will ruin the hunt. Now it is also important you keep the armor and protoform as well intact as possible since we use them for our tents.”

“So where do I cut?” Starscream asked.

Bumblebee placed a knife into the flyer’s servo and didn’t let go, instead guiding Starscream’s servo to the point to cut and then applying pressure with the other mech to make sure he cut through the armor of the mechanimal. “Now you’re going to be seeing some energon spurting but don’t ease up on the pressure please. If you do it will leak out and we really need to drain it once the head is off.”

“Alright,” Starscream said trying not to flinch away from the energon as it came out of the mechanimal.

“Just remember, it is no different than the energon in you and me, nothing horrifying,” Bumblebee said before brushing a bit of the energon off of Starscream’s servo.

Starscream sighed before replying, “Actually in cities syphoning is seen as something horrifying.”

Bumblebee’s servo twitched slightly on top of Starscream’s before he continued to cut, “And having mechs die mining energon isn’t.”

“Touché,” Starscream replied. “So the head is off, how do we drain this thing?”


	10. Bumblebee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes I deleted the second interlude. That was just an apology for lack of updates, and if I kept it was going to mess up future updates. So out it went. But hey, I’m off hiatus! There has also been a few quick edits to the first interlude, but that one is otherwise staying in place

Bumblebee wasn’t looking at Starscream. Well he was, but Bumblebee was only doing it to make sure that Starscream didn’t manage to taint the meat he was stripping. “Okay,” Bumblebee said before moving one of his servo’s over Starscream’s own, “You’re doing great but generally speaking it is better if you cut larger pieces now because we can always cut them smaller, but we can’t make a smaller hunk larger and some recipes and preparations require it larger.”

“Got it,” Starscream replied. “So what are we making with this one exactly?”

“Once we’re done getting the meat off of it we’ll refine the energon we drained from it and store it for regular use. Then we’ll begin to smoke and preserve what we strip. Finally, we’ll just roast the half we don’t strip and it will be the next day worth of meals for the tribe.”

“So do you always take such a servo-on approach to this?” Starscream asked.

Bumblebee smiled a bit, “When I need to. I generally stick to the gathering and preparation of flora rather than fauna but last time I did that some mech broke my leg so this is easier.”

“You mean you broke some mech’s wing’s, right?” Starscream said before returning Bumblebee’s smile.

“If I didn’t break your fall you would have broken more than your wings,” Bumblebee said before driving his hunting knife into the ground with a flourish. “Well we’ve gotten what we need off of it. Ready to see how we strain and store energon?”

“Not particularly,” Starscream admitted.

“You don’t need to help if you don’t want.” Bumblebee stood, “I would like it if you could bring the energon back to the tent for me though. I can’t exactly carry much.”

“Of course not. You’re so tiny.”

Starscream picked up the containers of the unstrained energon and started walking back to the tent before Bumblebee managed to retort he wasn’t tiny, he just couldn’t carry it with his cane. Ultimately, he wasn’t able to get a word in edgewise until Starscream was already in the tent, so the Bumblebee just followed Starscream back into his tent instead.

* * *

Bumblebee did his best to finish straining the energon from the mechanimal. It wasn’t difficult work by any means, it just involved switching filters and letting gravity and time take its course, but it was dull. He imagined it would only be more boring to watch, but that didn’t seem to stop Starscream. “You could ask for your datapads back. I mean I would love to read one but that looks boring.”

Starscream shrugged. “It does look boring,” Starscream said. “So, is it always the citymechs that do the hunting or do the minibots get in on it too?”

“It depends on the hunt,” Bumblebee said. “For some mechanimals the height helps, but we can take care of ourselves. We got along before we had tall mates. They are still relatively new anyways.”

“Any reason why?” Starscream asked. “I mean I’d expect there are at least a few a generation.”

“The chief before me didn’t allow it,” Bumblebee said as he wrung the remaining energon out of one of the filters before putting another filter in its place and starting to run the energon through it yet again. “I figured if a mech is willing to be part of our tribe we might as well let them. It isn’t an easy life so it isn’t like mechs are breaking down the doors to join us.”

“I thought you said you don’t like all the citymechs in the tribe,” Starscream said.

“I don’t, but I don’t have to. They do their part and my mechs are happy.” Bumblebee smiled at Starscream. “That’s all I want at the end of the day for my nomads, a happy life. That applies to our visitors too. So how about I ask again, do you want your books back? Are you bored? I mean I’d be happy just getting one translated, four might have been jumping the gun.”

“You know,” Starscream said, “since you can speak common and just can’t read it I could run over and grab a copy and get back here so I can keep you entertained while you do that.” Starscream gestured to Bumblebee’s strainer rig, “By the way when you take me home I can make a better one of those for you. That’s my day job, I am studying how to better refine energon. I can’t do anything that would require being attached to the city’s grid for you and I would need to make sure I avoid anything that can’t be repaired on its own.”

“It would have to be easy to move too,” Bumblebee added. “I’d be all up for something that wastes less energon, and something that doesn’t make such a mess.” He waved his servos and the mostly-refined energon splattered over himself and Starscream in the process.

“Then you shouldn’t make one!” Starscream said with a laugh. Starscream moved next to Bumblebee and wiped a bit of the energon off of the mech’s face. Bumblebee blushed and moved to wipe some of the energon off of Starscream, forgetting his servos were coated in energon and making a mess in the process.

“What did you say about not making a mess?” Bumblebee said.

“And what did you say about wasting energon?” Starscream replied. The flyer leaned in and licked a bit of energon off of Bumblebee’s cheek.

“Well this is as good as it’s going to get,” Bumblebee said looking at the strainer. “We should get washed up. I know an oil spring we can walk to.”

“Then lead the way,” Starscream replied.

“Gladly.”


	11. Starscream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes this is the second chapter today. I figured I'd leave hiatus with a bang

In Vos solvent showers were the standard for cleaning oneself. They took up next to no space on a floorplan and the high-powered jets of solvent managed to hit spots on wings that mechs could never reach to clean manually. Public oil baths were treats to be shared with friends, and even then Starscream rarely took them. He was in the perfect in between of just well known enough that going to the public baths may lead to annoying conversations, and not well off enough to buy a private bath for him and the trine. The last time he had gone it was Thundercracker’s idea to celebrate Starscream’s promotion in the air force. He hadn’t liked the idea because said promotion meant less time in the lab and more time on the field, but Thundercracker insisted and when the blue mech batted his optics Starscream couldn’t say no.

Starscream couldn’t help but smile at the thought of how this oil spring was completely practical but managed to be more luxurious than any the city had to provide. There were a few oil springs that could be visited as a day trip from the city, but then it was double the cost of a normal oil bath and required you taking a day off. Yet here he was lowering himself into a bubbling spring in the middle of nowhere, which probably would be the exact suggested “treatment” for relaxing his wing after a crash if he were home.

“Oh Primus this is good,” he muttered.

“I know,” Bumblebee said as he set his cane aside and entered the spring. “This is half of why we spend the season in this area. The springs are the best we’ve found in the plains to cultivate our groves. Plus they are just plain nice. We have to put up with polish when we move for hunting season.”

“There’s nothing wrong with a good polish,” Starscream said. “Do you guys ever get solvent in?”

“No,” Bumblebee said. “If we are running low on natural or traded polish we can roll out containers during acid storms than dilute it down with energon or oil until it will take off the gunk without permanently damaging our paint.”

“That must hurt.” Starscream said as he allowed himself to sink lower into the spring.

Bumblebee shrugged, “It hurts less than dirt caking in your joints until it wears away at them.”  

“I suppose. Don’t laugh at me when I complain come hunting season though.” Starscream sighed and shook his head, he was not ready to have his paint dulled. Nevertheless, he found himself laughing moments after that thought, days ago he was expecting rape and now the worst he could expect with the barbarians- _nomads_ , he corrected himself-was a dull paint job.

“If you really can’t stand it I can get you started in the groves and you can keep some of the jellied energon you harvest this season to trade for more polish,” Bumblebee said before diving under the surface of the oil for a moment. “You’ll probably be healed by then though.”

“I hope,” Starscream admitted. “Nothing against your tribe of course, I just can’t wait to fly again.”

“No offense taken, I can’t wait to drive again once my axels heal,” Bumblebee said.

“At least my crash didn’t hurt either of our t-cogs,” Starscream said. “Now that would be a pain. External damage is one thing but internal damage is a mess.”

“Once my voice box was ruined over a dispute with a clan of nomads who wanted to use this land during the season the minibots did.” Bumblebee shuttered his optics and ran his servo over this throat. “We couldn’t fix it, none of our allies could fix it, and one of the cities we trade with could fix it but wanted more than we could trade for to do it. I just had to leave it until I had enough to cover it. I can only imagine how bad it would be if I had to get you and me both fixed in a city.”

“Was the fight against another tribe of minibots?” Starscream found himself asking before he could think better of it.

“Nope. A tribe of warframes. They thought we’d be pushovers. We lost some good mechs to the fight but ultimately we’re still here, the same as any tribe.” Bumblebee smiled and opened his optics again, “We lost less members than we gained too. After word got out we could protect our land and our own we got city minis joining us.”

“So the normal sized mechs aren’t the only citymechs?”

“Nope. You’ve seen the orange one, right?” Bumblebee asked.

“The one with two mates? Yeah,” Starscream replied.

Bumblebee nodded, “All three are citymechs. The city they were from was…harsh on mini-frames. So once they realized they could actually survive out here they joined us. It’s plateaued though the places where minis are treated the worst don’t welcome us to trade with them so we can’t spread the word.”

“Vos was founded for the same reason,” Starscream said. “Flyers are treated as second class citizens nearly everywhere else so we realized we had to make a city of our own.”

“And yet you tell me Vos looks down on flyers,” Bumblebee replied.

“And I am guessing the warframes that were fighting you made their clan when they were tired of being treated poorly in cities the same as the minibots, yet they’ve fought you,” Starscream replied. “I am not about to pretend it is right, but at the same time it is impossible to deny it happens almost everywhere.”

Bumblebee nodded at Starscream’s statement. “I’ll still take it here though. I prefer fighting for my life against an uncaring Cybertron than fighting for my life against uncaring mechs.”

Starscream didn’t know how to reply to that and turned his attention to the sky and the stars glimmering above him, the stars so bright in the absence of light pollution Starscream could allow himself to float on the oil and imagine he was flying amongst them.


	12. Bumblebee

Bumblebee woke up to warmth and the smell of something tasty. Eons ago before his carrier was killed that was a fairly common occurrence as his carrier was early to rise and loved to cook, but Bumblebee hadn’t expected to wake up like that again after taking up the chief mantle for himself. “How did you even start a fire?” He asked as he sat up from his padding.

“My jets still work and I found where you keep the kindling the first day you left me alone,” Starscream said.

“Have you been up long? Bumblebee asked.

Starscream nodded and moved the left overs around in the pan without speaking.

“Are you mad at me again?” Bumblebee asked glancing at the flyer warily. “Sharing in oil baths is entirely practical. If one mech goes alone and gets attacked there would be problems. If that was your issue.”

“I’m not mad,” the mech said before taking the meal off of the fire and dumping dirt on top of the fire circle. “I just didn’t want our breakfast to overheat and explode.”

“It won’t explode,” Bumblebee said. “That is half of why it is so beneficial to drain the energon first, it makes the meat itself much less volatile.”

Starscream shrugged the reply off and poured half of the meal onto a plate and handed it to Bumblebee. “Then let’s say I didn’t want to give you burnt food then.”

Bumblebee rolled his optics at the comment but couldn’t contain a smile at it all the same. “You look relaxed.”

“I feel relaxed. I’ve been thinking about the prototype for a new strainer all morning and have a few ideas you might like.” Starscream fluttered his wings excitedly for a moment before grunting in pain and pulled out a datapad that had crudely been drawn on. “It uses suction rather than gravity, so I can have it ready to run today but it won’t be great. If you can manage to trade for solar panel equipment I’ll be able to do more though.”

“Wait, did you spend all night on this?” Bumblebee asked looking at the designs for potential rigs.

Starscream shook his head. “No, honestly that only took me about a cycle. It is based off of a design I made a while back for Vosian outposts. The only catch is our outposts still are connected to a grid so I had to make it a bit more simplified to work out here.”

“So I’ll take it you’ll be working on that today then,” Bumblebee said. “That’s good,” the minibot said with a smile, “that means I can go back into the groves today without worrying you’ll get bored.”

“Are you alright if I ask around to get some materials that aren’t in the tent?” Starscream asked.

“Of course!” Bumblebee replied and he opened up the tent flap for Starscream. “You can find me in the grove if you need me.”

“I doubt I will. I’ll probably grab your help come midday fueling but until then I can handle most of this myself.” Starscream ducked out of the flap and Bumblebee followed him out of the tent, waving at the mech before heading to the grove.

* * *

By the time midday fueling came Bumblebee was happy to have finished a container of jellied energon. It wasn’t a large container, but it would give him a chance to show Starscream what he did since Starscream was showing him the same.

Creating the candies had been Bumblebee’s favorite role with the Minibots far before he became their leader. There was something relaxing about the whole process from cultivating the flowers that made the energon nectar to harvesting to helping turn the nectar into the treats that cities and fellow tribes would trade greatly for. It was a luxury, sure, but the luxury for others helped provide necessities to the tribe. Bumblebee had even managed to create a servoful of different flavors during his time making the treats that had added to their value as trade items.

The luxuries weren’t for him though. Bumblebee only tasted the smallest amounts of jellied energon to test quality and hadn’t had a proper sized candy for himself in ages. A box of the jellies could fund so much more filling food, or new materials from areas of the plains his tribe didn’t venture themselves. Still if Starscream could make processing the energon they drained more efficient the least Bumblebee could do was give him what he would give any other mech providing a service for the Minibots. Plus if his guest was eating it Bumblebee would of course allow himself one as well.

Bumblebee put on a smile and entered the tent giving Starscream a nod. “Well that looks impressive.”

“It won’t be perfect but it will refine things a bit more than you managed to get them,” Starscream said. “It won’t move any faster than yesterday’s run though. I was thinking we could run what you distilled yesterday through it after we eat midday fuel and try the new distilled energon for evening fuel.”

“A taste test,” Bumblebee replied. He pulled a cushion up to the center of the tent and sat. “I have one of my own too. Want a jelly before normal fuel or as dessert?”

“Dessert,” Starscream said opening the box of sweets. “Wait are these nickel flavored?”

“Yep,” Bumblebee said. “I also have cobalt and gold if you would prefer those.”

“No, nickel is my favorite. I bought some of these backs when I got promoted. Well not from your tribe I don’t think but the same flavor,” Starscream popped one of the pieces of jellied energon in his mouth and grinned. “Okay one before the meal.”

“I’m not complaining,” Bumblebee said, “So did you heat anything up for us this time?”

“Yes,” Starscream said pulling out two bowls of energon. “Eat up.”

* * *

Lunch was a delight. Eating turned into experimenting with the machine Starscream made which ultimately lead to Bumblebee getting a ton of energon spilt on him when a weld on the gave out on the machine. It wasn’t a huge loss of energon but it did make Bumblebee like he had gotten in a nasty fight. Ultimately though Bumblebee was going to just let it go and return to the grove to finish working, he was going to get messier anyways. Plus, Starscream had mentioned he’d like to return to the oil spring that evening and he’d love to join the flier. So he left his tent to just go back to the groves.

Or at least that was his plan before he felt a sharp hit to his helm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have some commitments over the nest few days but I promise the fic will get updated sometime within a week.


	13. Starscream

“Forget your key?” Starscream quipped as he heard the tent flap open behind him.

“Starscream!” Before Starscream had time to process the voice he was being pulled into a tight grip. His wings ached as the grip continued and he still tried to figure out exactly what was happening before he finally realized it.

“Thundercracker! Skywarp!” Starscream found himself hugging his trine back regardless to his pain.

“They hurt you,” Thundercracker said as he finally let go of the trine leader. “Don’t worry, once we get you back to Vos we’ll make sure that a squad are sent here to make them pay.”

“What?” Starscream said. He shook his helm wildly, “I crashed. They didn’t hurt me.”

“That yellow mech we took out that left here was covered in energon,” Skywarp said.

“Took out?!” Starscream yelled. He shook himself from his friends’ hug and stormed out the tent flap to see Bumblebee lying face down on the ground. “Fragging hell.” Starscream picked the mech up and brought him inside, placing him on his berth cushion and making sure his head was elevated. Starscream checked Bumblebee’s helm over for any leaks, gashes, or dents and silently thanked Primus when he didn’t see any. “It’s not my energon.”

“So it is his energon, nice.” Skywarp said, “We knew you’d put up a fight.”

“I really hope I don’t need to get Swerve to treat him. Their medic doesn’t speak common,” Starscream said. “It’s good to see you two.”

 “Primus please tell me he hasn’t merged with you,” Thundercracker said. “We were worried he might have so we didn’t want to kill him and hurt you.”

Starscream sighed, “No, he hasn’t.” Starscream rubbed Bumblebee’s helm and couldn’t help but grin when he saw the other mech’s optics online. “Are you alright?”

Bumblebee groaned, “What the frag happened?”

“Kidnapping mechs has consequences, that’s what the frag happened,” Skywarp said. “Get used to it, we’re going to make sure you spend the rest of your life with that helmache.”

Starscream shook his head, “Can you not threaten him for a klik?”

“Good thing you explained those novels to me already,” Bumblebee said before he sat himself up. “Can you tell your friends I’m not hurting you?”

“He’s not hurting me.” Starscream replied before switching into Vosian, “He isn’t forcing me to say that. Shut up and listen if you don’t feel like insulting Vos’s one chance at getting a pede in the door with direct trade with nomads.”

“So that’s how that feels,” Bumblebee said in standard before switching into Minibot to tell Starscream, “Sorry.”

Starscream chuckled. “Let’s start with the basics. For you two, this is Bumblebee, he is the chief of the tribe we’re in, the Minibot tribe.” Starscream paused a moment and switched his attention back to Bumblebee before continuing. “These are my trinemates, Skywarp and Thundercracker. When I entered the Vosian Air Force they determined I was suited for command, and these two have been with me ever sense.”

“Military? I thought you were a scientist,” Bumblebee replied. The minibot’s optics narrowed, “I swear to Primus if you are trying to take my tribe we’ve faced mechs stronger than you three.”

“We’re not attacking you. We weren’t even scouting you,” Starscream said.

“Then why the frag were you in the plains? I figured you must have been running from something, then when you made that,” Bumblebee said waving his servo to the energon refiner, “I figured you were an energy scientist so of course you were out hear looking for energy sources or going between jobs or something. Why the frag would a military officer be here if not to do us harm?”  

“I was looking for energy sources,” Starscream replied flustered. He looked back and forth between his trine and Bumblebee, unsure of who he wanted to address first.

“Then you’d bring in your army to take it if we had any other than hunting and farming!” Bumblebee yelled. “You know not everyone wanted to treat you. I was sticking out my neck for you!”

“I wasn’t going to bring the army,” Starscream said with a sigh. “I was running from something too.”

“So he protected you from some other tribe?” Skywarp asked.

“No Warp I needed a fragging break from Vos.”

“What?” Skywarp asked.

“Look I wasn’t planning on being gone long. I was going to be back at the end of my day R&R I requested. I just wanted a break and wanted to fly outside the city and hit a fragging bird and crashed. Then Bumblebee helped bandage up my wings and gave me energon. That is all. I’ll go back to Vos, but I can’t go myself with broken wings.”

“You said you were looking for energy out here. Care to explain that?” Bumblebee asked.

“I spend every R&R on science and research,” Starscream said, “Can we talk more about this later Bee? Station some of the warriors outside the tent, don’t let me and my trine out if you don’t trust us, but I need to talk to them.”

“It’s my tent. Can you just switch to Vosian?” Bumblebee asked. “I still have a helm ache from the blue one.”

“Thundercracker,” Thundercracker chirped back at Bumblebee.

“Fair enough,” Starscream replied. He sighed and reverted back to Vosian, “So are you two willing to say you weren’t able to find me and let me return back home when my wing heals on its own?”

“And leave you in the care of barbarians,” Skywarp said. “No way!”

“They won’t hurt me. Or at least they wouldn’t before you showed up,” Starscream said. “I think some tribes are like the novels. Bumblebee mentioned another tribe attacked his once and ruined his voice box in the process. The thing is this tribe isn’t. It is like Vos is for seekers this is for minibots.”

“They don’t even have a hospital; how can you even hope they’ll fix your wings?” Thundercracker asked, “And why would you want to stay even if they aren’t bad? They don’t even have mined energon.”

“They saw my altmode and didn’t automatically ask me to fight or fly for them. Maybe I liked having a mech see me do an experiment and accepting I was a scientist at face value,” Starscream admitted, his wings twitching slightly.

“It isn’t like you could fly for them if you wanted to right now Screamer,” Skywarp said. “Plus they are barbarians, if you stay with them you’ll have to fight with them eventually.”

“I won’t stay forever,” Starscream said. “I am a good and loyal Vosian. I will return to my people when I am of use. Why have Vos waste the resources on a mech who apparently can’t fly over flat land on vacation? Just don’t tell them you found me, and don’t tell them about the Minibot’s land.”

“And why are we bothering with the second half?” Skywarp asked.

“I don’t want them to get harmed for helping me,” Starscream replied.

“How about this? We’ll stay with you a week to let you get a bit of extra rest, and then we take you back home and act like we just found you right before our return,” Thundercracker said.

“That would be up to Bumblebee,” Starscream said shifting back into common. “My trine can either take me back with them tonight or take me back in a week’s time. Either way we promise not to tell Vos of your tribe or your land.”

“If they were to remain the week with us we’d keep them on a watch. You are harmed, you are our guest. We will defend you I needed. These two, however are unwelcomed visitors who have openly provoked me,” Bumblebee replied.

“I…understand,” Starscream said, glaring at his trinemates when it looked like they might complain. “Can we talk alone once you grab guards for them?” Starscream asked.

“Oh you’re going to have some talking to do,” Bumblebee said. “As for you two I think you’ll find that Soundwave and his family are more than capable of watching a few city mechs that got a cheap shot in on me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for putting me over 100 kudos. I hope you guys have enjoyed the last three chapters. I've been pushing them out faster than I've been getting feedback for them because I am still in a bit of apology mode for the hiatus being three times longer than I said it would be


	14. Bumblebee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for an update that is a few hundred words less than I've been managing these past few chapters. I am doing my best to get this story out as quickly as possible though, so a proper sized chapter should be following within the next few days at least

“So why did you want to talk alone?” Bumblebee asked as he lowered himself back into the oil spring in hopes of getting the now sticky spilt energon off of him. “What could you possible have to tell me that you didn’t tell me in the tent after you fragging had to?”

“I don’t want to go home,” Starscream said. “I didn’t want to have Thundercracker and Skywarp hear me say I didn’t want to go home.”

“And what makes you think you’re welcome here? Primus what made you think lying about yourself would help a case to stay here?” Bumblebee asked the other mech refusing to make optic contact with Starscream. “Did you mean to crash? Were you hoping I’d claim you as a mate so you wouldn’t have to go back?”

“I wasn’t planning on staying here either,” Starscream said. The flyer moved to touch Bumblebee’s shoulder but Bumblebee flinched away from his touch. “I was hoping to make it to Iacon first. I have a friend who had made it to the city from Vos and he told me he managed to find work as a lab assistant.

“After I crashed though I was desperately hoping my trine would find me and bring me home and trines just have this weird sense. We know when we’re needed, it is why the military makes sure their commanders have trines. Thundercracker and Skywarp can move my men on a battlefield in almost identical ways I would command myself, and can do so when I am too occupied to command them myself. It is hard to explain.” Starscream paused for a second and pursed his lipplates before saying a word in Vosian Bumblebee couldn’t hope to understand. “There isn’t a word for it in common. That’s why they probably knew I needed help and were able to figure out I was with a tribe, even if they didn’t know which tribe.”

“Why do you want to leave Vos? Didn’t you say the entire reason flyers made the city was to be free from grounders.” Bumblebee asked. He motioned to Starscream as an offer to join him in the oil spring if the flyer wished to.

“Functionism exists even when mechs are all flyers or grounders,” Starscream said. I bet I could make filters that didn’t explode on you if I had been deemed appropriate as a scientist in Vos or in another city, but I'm not. I am a strong, fast, medium sized plane. I am perfect for the military regardless of how I might be in a lab.”

“But you’ll return,” Bumblebee said. “You’ll still go back to that and you won’t tell them of the energon processor you are making for us, or of us.”

“I have to,” Starscream said. “I like the idea of making something for your tribe though. It will prove I can when I am given the time for it. Plus maybe I like the idea of your tribe and want you to do well. I’ve heard some of the mechs that speak common talk about how I’ve been draining time and resources from you. I at least want to leave you the same as I found you, not worse.”

“We’ve survived worse than what you’ve done,” Bumblebee replied. “Leave now if you want.”

“Is that what you want?” Starscream asked.

Now it was Bumblebee’s turn to be flustered at how this conversation was going. He didn’t want Starscream to leave, not yet anyways. In their few days together, Bumblebee had managed to think about how pleasant it would be to have his new company until Starscream was sure he could fly again. He knew it wasn’t a permeant thing, but Bumblebee couldn’t help but like the idea of them spending a while longer yet. “I don’t know,” Bumblebee admitted. “I guess that makes two of us, you don’t know what you want either, do you?”

“I expected to have longer to figure it out,” Starscream said. “Can I join you?”

“Of course, get in,” Bumbebee said shifting to allow there to be a seeker-sized space in the oil spring’s opening.

“Can you believe it’s only been a few days?”

“No,” Bumblebee said. “Can you believe you only have a few days more here?”

“No,” Starscream replied.

“So we have to make them count,” Bumblebee said. He moved a bit closer to Starscream. “Mind getting my doorwings for me?”

“Sure,” Starscream said and soon clawed digits were plucking bits of gunk and dirt from the past few days from places Bumblebee hadn’t even realized were aching him. _Only a few more days_ Bumblebee thought to himself, it was useless to get any more attached.


	15. Starscream

The walk back to Bumblebee’s tent was a slow and awkward one. The minibot was struggling with his still-splinted leg and neither Bumblebee nor Starscream himself particularly wanted to talk about the fact they were returning to Starscream’s trine. Instead Bumblebee simply pushed on, allowing his cane to occasionally hit the ground with a bit more force so there was at least some sound during their walk, even if that sound was just a soft thud.

“What are the names of your friends?” Bumblebee asked, finally breaking the silence.

“The blue mech is Thundercracker, the purple mech is Skywarp,” Starscream replied.

“They must really love you to enter the plains to find you given what Vos thinks of nomads,” Bumblebee said. “Some of the tribes would have killed trespassers as well, so the danger was real.”

Starscream blushed. “I mean we’re a trine, it comes with the territory. You’d help one of your tribemates if they were in trouble.”

“Of course,” Bumblebee said. “I wouldn’t personally be part of it through. I do have to wonder why it was just your trine. You said you have more mechs under your control, shouldn’t more have been sent to find you?”

“If my trine could locate me and identified I was alive they would have sent more mechs to recover me,” Starscream said. The mech looked away from Bumblebee, “If they decided I was worth the energy. I wasn’t able to protect myself they may think it is silly to put my underlings in danger to extract me.” What Starscream didn’t say, what he didn’t want to add, was the fact that his trine was sent to find him because without him the trine was incomplete, so if they went missing as well it would be acceptable losses.

They continued to walk together for a while longer before finally returning to Bumblebee’s tent. As they moved closer the silence between them faded away, replaced by the sounds of Skywarp and Thundercracker arguing.

“Hi Soundwave,” Bumblebee said as he ducked into his tent. “Thanks for watching the Vosians for me.”

“Are you sure you can handle them yourself?” Soundwave replied and Starscream smiled and made a mental note to thank Soundwave later for using common to reply.

“Starscream, you think I can make it out of the night without being killed?” Bumblebee asked.

Starscream couldn’t help but chuckle at the question. “Unless a wild mechanimal gets into the tent, then I make no promises.”

“Then we’ll be fine,” Bumblebee said. “Go back home and tell Cosmos and your sons I say hello.”

“Of course, chief. Have a good night,” Soundwave said before leaving the tent.

“That mech is terrifying,” Thundercracker said in Vosian the moment Soundwave left. “How have you been surviving here?”

“I only met Soundwave briefly at evening rations last night,” Starscream replied in his native language as well. “For the most part I’ve been alone in the tent or with Bumblebee.”

“Because he’s been keeping you here?” Skywarp asked. “I can’t imagine he can overpower you.”

“From what he’s told me he’s more powerful than he looks when he doesn’t have a broken leg,” Starscream said. “But no, I just didn’t want to leave the tent much.”

“And yet you want to leave it once we get here to help you,” Skywarp said crossing his arms.

“You knocked out my host!” Starscream said shifting back to common. “Of course I was going to leave the tent to help him get to the springs he was trying to get to when you knocked him out.”

“You don’t have to defend me Starscream, I’ve been through worse,” Bumblebee said. The minibot sighed and moved to his berth, “Look I know you two won’t trust me, but all I’ve done to your friend is feed him and have my healers take a look at his wings.” Bumblebee closed his optics and let out a loud ex-vent before continuing, “Don’t trust me. That’s fine, but trust Starscream at least. He has had a slagging horrible week. He doesn’t need his friends harassing him. Star, feel free to take your friends around the camp if you want, I am exhausted though. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight Bumblebee,” Starscream replied in common before yet again shifting into Vosian. “It has been a slagging horrible week but he hasn’t put a servo on me that I haven’t vocally consented to. Even then it was only to teach me how to use a hunting knife.”

“Will he be upset if you don’t join him in berth soon?” Thundercracker asked.

Starscream shook his head, “I’ve been using the cushions. Want to walk and talk?”

“And no one will bother us?” Thundercracker asked nervously.

Starscream shook his head again, “Lets get out of here so Bumblebee can sleep.” With that Starscream grabbed the lamp currently lighting the tent and walked out of the tent flap, grinning when Thundercracker and Skywarp followed him out.

“The evening fire is still going,” Starscream said leading the mechs to the center of the camp weaving between tents. “I’ve only been to it yesterday but it should give us a nice a place as any to talk.” The flyer settled himself on a bench and motioned for his trinemates to do the same, smiling when Thundercracker sat to his right and Skywarp sat to the left.

“I’m so glad you’re alive,” Thundercracker said. “We thought if we’d ever see you’d be miserable.”

“I think I got lucky. Bumblebee said the leader of another tribe ripped his voice box out.” Starscream shuttered at the thought, “But he’s fine. Great really. I thought he was going to kick me out when he found out about the romance novels I like.”

“Thinking about convincing him to be a consort?” Skywarp asked plainly. “He seems like he could handle the city.”

Starscream sputtered at the comment. “No!” Starscream shook his head violently for a few moments. “Bumblebee is the chief here. That mech, Soundwave, who you thought was intimidating? He’s in control of that mech and Soundwave doesn’t complain. Do you remember hearing about how that warrior from Tetrahex took a minibot as his conjunx? That warrior lives here and guess what? Bumblebee is still in control. He wouldn’t give all that up to be some military commander’s consort.” Starscream wouldn’t give it up to be some military commander’s consort either.

“Wait? I thought Soundwave called this a tribe of minibots,” Skywarp said. “How do they have real warriors from cities?”

“I have an idea,” Starscream said doing his best to hold back the blush from his cheek plates. “It doesn’t matter though. I’m here one more week. He’ll have known me less than two weeks. When I thought I had until my wings fixed maybe it would be different for one of us.”

Thundercracker grinned at Starscream, “So you do like him.”

Starscream grumbled. Of course he liked the mech, why was his trine going to make him say it? It hurt enough knowing nothing could come from it when it was all just in his processor, it would be worse to say it out loud. “All I waned when I left was to make it to Iacon. Slipstream was ready for a trine, I figured you two would be in good servos.”

“You wanted to be found,” Thundercracker said softly. “We felt it. You could have told us you wanted to leave.”

“Fine. Look I love you two. You are my family and I don’t regret being part of the Vosian military for a second because they gave me you,” Starscream said closing his optics so he needn’t look at either of his trinemates. “I didn’t want you to think me leaving was about you or what we’ve done. I just want to be a scientist. I always have and I can’t while I’m in Vos. Or at least I can’t the way I want to be.”

“And we could follow you and join you in the military of whatever city you moved to,” Skywarp said. “You didn’t care about us, not really. You wanted us to think you were dead Starscream.”

“You’re right,” Starscream said. “Look, you’re right. You can go back to Vos without me or you can stay the week you said you did. Do what makes you happy. Just don’t leave until the morning. I managed to have my flight path ruined in the middle of the day when I wasn’t paying attention. I don’t want you flying at night out here.”

“And what are you doing then?” Thundercracker asked. “Are you staying here? Are you going back after your wings are fixed like you said? Are you still going to Iacon?”

“I don’t know,” Starscream said honestly. “Look I’ll take you back to Bumblebee’s tent for the night. We’ll make sure you have the fuel to make your next moves, I just need to recharge right now.”

“You’re an idiot,” Skywarp replied. “You should just be happy it is too late for us to travel with Thundercracker. If I was alone I’d warp back tonight.”

“So you’ll spend the night then,” Starscream said. “I’ll show you back to the tent then.”


	16. Bumblebee

“Good morning Starscream,” Bumblebee said lazily as he onlined his optics, confused when two flyers who were most definitely not Starscream were in his tent instead. “Oh yeah,” he muttered as he blinked his optics and shook his head, “Thundercracker and Skywarp, right?”

“Right,” the purple one replied in common.

“I’m sorry, which is which?” Bumblebee asked. “Yesterday was a little hectic.”

“I’m Skywarp, he’s Thundercracker,” the purple mech said. “You’re Bumblebee, right?”

“I never introduced myself, did I?” Bumblebee asked shaking his head. “Sorry about that. Yeah, I’m Bumblebee. It’s nice to meet Starscream’s family.” The minibot stuck out a servo and grinned when Thundercracker shook it.

“You might think otherwise when you’re done hosting us for a week,” Thundercracker said with a smile. “Sorry for knocking you out last night.”

“I’ve been through worse,” Bumblebee said with a slight smile. “You two haven’t fueled since you’ve got here. You must be hungry.” The minibot moved to a shelf and pulled down a few jars of energon. “That should tide you over until I can get more from the tribe’s shared stock.”

“How’d you get this?” Skywarp asked as he eyed the energon hesitantly.

“We drain mechanimals. Starscream helped with some last night,” Bumblebee said. “It tastes completely normal. Starscream didn’t realize it wasn’t mined until he helped us drain one yesterday.”

Skywarp said something in Vosian and Thundercracker laughed in reply. Bumblebee just rolled his optics and handed a jar to each mech. He’d have to tell the tribe members that spoke common to not bother with those two to see how they felt about it.

“I’m glad to hear you two are staying with us this week. I couldn’t understand what you and Starscream were saying last night but I could tell you were arguing.” Bumblebee sighed and found himself wondering why he cared so much even. “Last night I was telling Starscream how brave you two were for finding him. If I went missing I’d hope someone in my tribe tried half as hard to look for me outside of our own territory.”

“We are pretty great,” Skywarp said smiling at the minibot. “You could tell Star that a bit more for us.”

“A cornered turbo-fox won’t always make the wisest move,” Bumblebee said. “When I was younger I wanted to prove myself and was sure I could hunt. Instead of asking my carrier to join the next hunt I went on my own and nearly got myself mauled in the process.”

Thundercracker grumbled. “He isn’t a youngling though.”

Bumblebee nodded. “You know if I was…like your city thinks I would be he would have been screwed by himself. He crashed and was completely helpless. When you two showed up though you managed to knock me out easily.”

“Exactly!” Skywarp said. “He likes acting like just because he’s our leader we can’t do as much as him but he might as well not even be our leader if he refuses to lead us.”

“That’s tough,” Bumblebee said. “So where are you hoping he goes, Vos or Iacon?”

“Iacon isn’t as good as he hopes,” Skywarp said. “Don’t tell him but I warped there to see his friend Skyfire and he isn’t a lab assistant. He’s in transportation.”

“We were saving our credits to surprise him but then when Skywarp did the test trip and found that out,” Thundercracker said before trailing off.

Bumblebee nodded, “My carrier was from Iacon. He left when he found out he was carrying so I didn’t need to deal with their prejudices.” Bumblebee sighed, “But that’s why I’m here. Why we’re all here. I am excited to show you what my tribe has to offer.”  

“Please tell me it has more than just that horrifying mech you left us with last night,” Thundercracker said.

Bumblebee couldn’t help but laugh at that. “I’m sorry about that. Frankly if you two can promise me you won’t hurt my tribe or Starscream in your week with us you won’t be guarded unless you go against your word.”

Thundercracker said something in Vosian that made Skywarp laugh. The duo shared a few more words between each other before Starscream walked in and blushed at whatever was being said.

“They won’t hurt any of us,” Starscream confirmed. “And they won’t be talking in Vosian when you’re alone with them!”

“Boss,” Thundercracker whined. “Would you rather us tell him what we said?”

“You two are impossible,” Starscream replied.

“I think they’re nice,” Bumblebee said grinning at the red mech. “Don’t worry Star, I know how families can be. How about I leave you three alone and try to get some work done?”

“I think if these two help I can get that filter finished today,” Starscream replied. “See you at midday fuel.”

* * *

“So do you want to talk about how you went from one to three drop dead glorious flyers in your home?”  Swerve asked as Bumblebee seasoned a new batch of jellies.

“It doesn’t matter,” Bumblebee said. “Look maybe if he was staying until his wing was better I could properly court him but he isn’t so why bother talking about it.”

“Come on! Tailgate is always telling me citymechs don’t do it the way we do. So what if you didn’t go through the ritus before he joined the tribe? He’s here, he likes it.” Swerve grinned, “The real question is if you’re going to let any of us have a shot at those other two.”

“Look if you can convince some mech to give up their entire life for someone they just met good luck,” Bumblebee said. “If he asked me to go back to a city with him I’d say no in a second.”

“Well you were saying he didn’t like the city,” Swerve replied, “And have you seen how he acts around you? It is a mutual crush. Don’t be stupid. I had to watch Tailgate and Cyclonus flirt for a fragging decade before they did anything, I’m, not dealing with that again!”

“Oh hush,” Bumblebee replied, but a part of him did wonder if it would be worth at least bringing up with Starscream’s family to see how the red flyer would react if Bumblebee said anything.


	17. Starscream

“So are you going to make it break on Bumblebee again so you can grab another bath with him?” Skywarp asked Starscream as he finished welding the filter.

Starscream glared at Skywarp. “I did not do that on purpose!” Starscream shook his and stuck out his glossa.

“We can’t talk to you about running away, we can’t talk to you about your crush, what the frag are we suppose to talk to you about then?” Skywarp asked with a grin.

“How are you feeling? When did you become disenchanted with the Vosian military? How did you manage to drain that energon we drank this morning?”

“Okay then. How are you feeling?” Thundercracker asked.

Starscream thought for a moment before saying, “Horrible honestly. Is my left wing dislocated? I know it is broken but it feels dislocated.”

“Yeah it is,” Thundercracker said. The blue mech looped to Starscream’s back and pushed the wing back into its joint. The pain shot through Starscream’s system and he let out a screech of pain. “Now it isn’t!”

“I did miss you two,” Starscream said. He rolled his shoulders hesitantly and grinned at the fact they no longer stung. “Even if I’d like a warning to dim my sensors next time.”

Skywarp shook his head, “You would have tensed up if we warned you.”

Starscream poked the weld on the refiner to make sure it was solid rather than justifying the comment with a response. Starscream looked at his friends sitting across from him. Neither was fully relaxed, wings were raised, and they were giving each other knowing glances. “Okay what is it?”

“What is what?” Thundercracker asked.

“You are either terrified of the minibot I’m living with, or you’re hiding something from me,” Starscream said. “Look, you know I ran away from home and have a crush on a Barbarian. My secrets are on the table. Spill.”

“He called it a crush!” Skywarp said giving Thundercracker a high five.

Thundercracker grinned, “He’s such a softy. We should probably spill now he’s admitted it.”

“Fine,” Skywarp said. “Maybe we’re worried about following you to Iacon.”

“We’re going back to Vos,” Starscream said crossing his arms. “Or at least you two are.”

“Speaking about that…” Thundercracker said trailing off. “They wanted to assign us to Slipstream already. They didn’t want to send out a rescue party when you were so close to that tribe that keeps messing with our outposts.”

“You two went AWOL for me,” Starscream said. “But they know how trines are, when you come back with me your punishment will be waved.”

“We’re a trine Starscream. Have you thought maybe some of your emotions about Vos have bled to us? Or our emotions about Vos bled to you?” Skywarp said. “We knew something was going on with you so we started seeing other options.”

“For cities or for trinemates?” Starscream asked.

“They still have functionism in Iacon. I went for a bit of an unauthorized warp,” Skywarp said. “Skyfire isn’t in science. He just wanted you to think he didn’t waste his energy moving.”

“So none of us want to go back to Vos and Iacon isn’t an option,” Starscream said. He let out a laugh despite himself. “What the frag are we suppose to do then? We can’t get to Praxis without a shuttle and no way I am going to fragging Kaon.”

“Of course not, people don’t go to Kaon, they end up in Kaon,” Thundercracker said.

“But you two said you were leaving in a week,” Starscream said. He shook his head, “Where are you going?”

“Warping until we figure it out,” Skywarp said.

“You could stay,” Starscream said. “You’ve only been here a day but you can at least stay until my wing is healed Then we can talk about our next move.”

“If we decide we miss it we can go back to Vos and claim we got kidnapped by barbarians, say we don’t know their location and just escaped, and go back to our lives,” Skywarp said.

“Okay then. We can talk to Bumblebee about it tonight. I mean they are a minibot tribe mostly, they might not even want us,” Starscream admitted.

“Just tell him we’re a package deal with you,” Skywarp said with a grin. “So since you wanted us to ask how did you drain that energon exactly?”

“Well Bumblebee showed me how to feel for a vein to cut at, and then I held it up and let it drain out,” Starscream said.

“Okay I was expecting it to be more exciting,” Thundercracker said.

“If you two are staying you’ll get to figure it out soon,” Starscream said. “Then maybe you’ll find it more exciting.”

“Letting gravity do its job, exciting,” Skywarp said in a deadpan.

Starscream smiled at the comment. He had his trine, now all he had to do was confirm he had a home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have updates! I'm hoping to finish this part of the Barbarian AU by chapter 20. From there I have more story with Starscream and Bumblebee to tell, but I haven't decided if I want to label it as Part/Act 2 in this fic itself, or if I want to put it as a sequel using the AO3 series mechanic. Honestly I'm up for hearing what you, the readers, would prefer.


	18. Bumblebee

Seeing Starscream out of the tent made Bumblebee happy. Mechs weren’t meant to be cooped up all day and the fact the seeker finally seemed to trust the tribe was welcome as well. Bumblebee couldn’t help but wonder if Starscream would be more or less comfortable in the other regions the Minibots settled in throughout the year. Surely the seeker would enjoy the corners of the mountain region to the open plains, flyers loved height from what Bumblebee heard, but then again the minibot supposed he’d never get to figure that one out firsthand.

At least Starscream seemed to be happy. Once Bumblebee could see the flyer’s face he was grinning from audial to audial. “Are you free for a few minutes?” The flyer asked.

“Not exactly,” Bumblebee admitted as he looked at the field under his pedes. “But my audials are open if you don’t mind me harvesting.”

“Can I help?” Starscream asked.

Bumblebee shook his helm and crouched, “Just don’t step on any buds and we’re good.”

Starscream nodded and crouched as well. “I was actually wondering how your tribe works as far as jobs are concerned. Clearly you’re a busy mech.”

Bumblebee plucked a bud and raised it to his lips, sucking on the bit of fluid from it. The fluid was sweet, almost too sweet, but it would still fall into acceptable range for trades. Especially in cities where the citizens were used to too sweet manufactured treats. “I have been involved in our harvesting my entire life. I have a bit of a talent for it and that combined with a life of experience means it would be silly for me to leave until I have an apprentice fully trained. Which I don’t intend to do until I am a much older mech.” He plucked another bud and stored it in his subspace before working his way down a row of the flowers.

“When you have mechs join the tribe and they haven’t been doing things their whole life how do you figure out what they do?” Starscream asked.

That made Bumblebee sputter. “You don’t have to worry about that as a guest. You are doing more than enough with that filter. You didn’t even have to do that.” He shook his helm again. He refused to overthink what Starscream was asking.

“It is the least I could do.” Starscream said. “If anything I am just sorry my wing is broken or I could have done guard duty or something more fitting my frame.”

“We aren’t functionists,” Bumblebee said. “And none of us are scientists. Your help is welcome Starscream. In a city I’d…goodness I don’t even know what I’d be but I wouldn’t be a commander.”

Starscream shook his head, “And that’s a shame. I haven’t seen much of you commanding your mechs but they seem happy and ready to accept orders. That takes a natural ability, it isn’t something you get from an alt.”

“A complement from a fellow commander. Of course you’ve got it too. Your trine loves you after all, that is loyalty that goes past orders.” Bumblebee said with a slight smile. At least Starscream had people in the city that would care for him.

“It’s a trine thing,” Starscream said. “Another trine thing? Those two are going to last maybe five more minutes before they decide to cut in.” The flyer sighed, “They mean well though.”

“So what do you want to talk about before then?” Bumblebee asked. He stood and leaned on his cane, “Unless you just want to go back to the tent so we can talk about getting you materials for your trip home.”

“That’s the thing,” Starscream said. And with that Bumblebee’s spark froze for a moment, that was a clear _if_. Sure he hadn’t said if, but still…no Bumblebee wasn’t going to think about it. “I was wondering about payment. I was hoping the filter would be enough in exchange for everything.”

“It is,” Bumblebee said. _So that was it_.

“If my trine and I were to stay until my wing was healed completely could I make another as payment for that?” Starscream asked.

“I thought you were leaving this week,” Bumblebee said.

“My trine defected from Vos for me. I don’t know if they’ll want to stay here permanently but I’d like to…somehow earn our upkeep until I could leave with them if need be.”

“Oh,” Bumblebee said. The mech tried to think of something more to say, but nothing game to him at first. “We can…work something out. What about you? You said you don’t know if they want to stay.”

“I don’t know,” Starscream admitted. The flyer grinned slightly before continuing. “I know how courting in Vos works, but you never did tell me exactly what courting here entitles, only what it didn’t.”

Bumblebee smiled in response. The minibot could definitely work with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully I can start part two soon. I am about to have some changes in my life and I can’t entirely figure out what my free time is going to look like, but when I have the time and energy to write part two will be high on my list of fic writing priorities. Thank you for sticking with me until the end!


End file.
